Re: Need apple /// help

[louiss@gate.net (Louis Schulman)]

In <1dq40cz.10yi8mgfvgapaN@dempson.actrix.gen.nz>, dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) writes:
>SUPRDAVE <suprdave@aol.comAolsucks> wrote:
>
>I've only briefly used an Apple ///, but I have the owner's manuals and
>know a little about it.
>
>Judging from the owner's manual, it looks like SOS handles offline disks
>similarly to GS/OS: the system will ask you to reinsert the system disk
>if it needs it.  I imagine it would be clumsy to run an application from
>a different disk with a single 5.25" drive.
>
>> i'm used to prodos8 and dos3.3 where i can swap disks anytime and catalog
>> and run programs anytime.
>
>I can't see anything clear about this in the manuals, but it appears you
>are supposed to boot from the appropriate disk to run applications on
>that disk.  I didn't see any examples which implied there was a standard
>program selector, but I assume something sensible happens if you quit
>from the utilities.

Wrong assumption.  Actually, the SOS has about the stupidest system for
changing drives in existence...you can't!  The current drive is always the
boot drive, which is always the internal floppy.  You can access DATA off
other drives.  If you want to run programs off other drives (like the
ProFile), they have to be installed with a special selector program.  That
program must be booted, and then you run the programs on the other drives
from its menu.

There were two main selector programs available, one by Quark and the other
by On Three.  The newer BOS (Bob's Operating System) also incorporates some
solution to this dilemma.

People say reliability problems killed the ///, but this use of drives was 
probably sufficient in and of itself.

Louis